"Goodbye, Leng Yan!"
With that, I stood up and walked out. Leng Yan gave a faint smile, and still cuffed to the chair, the chair and he crashed into the corner of the table. He wanted to die, but was stopped by the rushing police officers.
Leng Yan confessed the names of the thirteen people he had killed and his life stories. Everything he said was to exchange for Liu Chenxi's sincere experience before she died. When he heard that sincerity would always be loved in the world and there would be no more deception, he decided to follow Liu Chenxi's footsteps to another world.
...
Leng Yan was an orphan from a young age, raised by a prostitute. At thirteen, he fell in love with this woman who was sixteen or seventeen years older than him. He was very intelligent then, the best student in school. When he excitedly brought home his first-place score on a mock exam, his mother died. The responsible police officer, because his mother was a prostitute, casually ruled her death as suicide by hanging.
However, Leng Yan did not think so. He firmly stated that his mother had been strangled and then hung from the beam. Strangling and hanging are easy to distinguish, but no one believed Leng Yan's words.
Returning to school, Leng Yan, whose mother had died, was not only not comforted by his classmates but was also mocked from all sides. They said he was the son of a prostitute, that he was dirty, and what good was it for him to be first in his studies? He was still garbage.
These remarks completely enraged Leng Yan, and he beat his classmates black and blue. The school ordered him to withdraw and send him to a welfare institution. Leng Yan left school, refusing to go to the welfare institution. He told the police that although he was thin and weak, he was already fifteen, almost sixteen, and could support himself. In reality, he was only thirteen.
That year, at thirteen, he worked on construction sites with men in their twenties, earning a meager wage to support himself. He did not fear hardship, nor did he complain about exhaustion. All his spare time was spent reading Japanese mystery novels. He sought methods of murder from these novels, saved money, and planned.
Leng Yan did not know who killed his mother, but he believed that the murderer must be among her regular customers. He thought, "If only they all died."
...
Because the police ruled Leng Yan's mother's death as suicide, Leng Yan would not let those people appear to have been murdered; he wanted the murderers to look like they had committed suicide. In the span of a year, he killed six people. These six cases were not investigated by the police. In the eyes of the common people, the deaths of these six people were also filled with a sense of the supernatural, as if they had provoked something unclean and were killed by something inexplicable.
...
Under these circumstances, Chang She Gui (Long-tongued Ghost) found Leng Yan.
"Child, I know you killed those six people."
"Are you a police officer?"
"No!"
"Then why are you meddling? Aren't you afraid of death?"
Chang She Gui laughed heartily: "Child, your adventurous life has just begun. Only by following me will you have the right to control the life and death of others."
"No!"
Chang She Gui's eyes darted around: "If you come with me, you will meet women like your mother."
Leng Yan fell silent. No matter how intelligent Leng Yan was, he was ultimately just a child with a prejudiced mind. He finally left that city with Chang She Gui.
...
Leng Yan met Liu Chenxi. Liu Chenxi treated him like a younger brother, and in the depths of his heart, he silently fell in love with this woman who was like a mother. For this reason, the intelligent Leng Yan gave up on becoming a planner and became Liu Chenxi's tool.
Two years ago, Liu Chenxi left "Logic Paradox" to take revenge, planning her vengeance alone. Leng Yan resolutely helped Liu Chenxi conceal her whereabouts and became Lina's pawn, helping Lina complete the final step of the pig-butchering scheme.
In the eyes of others, Leng Yan was a cold-blooded killer. When he killed those women like pigs, all he thought was that he had to become a useful person in this organization to protect Liu Chenxi.
It was because of this love that after Liu Chenxi's death, Leng Yan became somewhat radical. He wanted to kill Yu Xiaoluo and me, who were investigating. His setup at Yu Xiaoluo's home could have completely killed her, but by chance, Yu Xiaoluo did not return home due to the leak. Instead, Hao Zi Ge went to deal with the problem. As a result, Hao Zi Ge died.
Leng Yan wanted to kill me, and he actually succeeded. If I had died, Leng Yan might have truly ended his own life out of longing for Liu Chenxi. However, when he learned that I was not dead, he participated in Lina's new plan. He was also caught in my trap within this plan and was rounded up by my colleagues from the Criminal Investigation Bureau.
...
After listening to me talk about Liu Chenxi, Leng Yan's state of mind changed greatly. He no longer wanted to live.
When interrogating Lina, I felt a sense of pleasure in crushing her mentally. But with Leng Yan, my heart felt heavy. Why must circumstances sometimes force people into a tragic world?
I thought of Lao Tie. When Lao Tie and I were in Ruili, we reached a fork in the road of life, leaving behind ordinary lives. Lao Tie was not wrong, but those gossips stimulated Lao Tie's self-esteem and pushed him to an extreme.
...
I received a call the next day. Lina's pig-butchering scheme had defrauded thirty-eight people in total. Three of them had taken goods overseas, and the estimated value of the antiques taken was over one hundred million. Moreover, of the thirteen people who took the goods, although ten did not report the scam, they were all eliminated by Leng Yan. Their families still do not know that they were murdered, rather than having died of depression after being scammed.
...
Two years ago, in Xi'an, a scam called "Treasures" was broken. This scam involved any collection, even a cheap fake bought for ten yuan at a flea market. As long as you took it to an auction house, the appraiser would tell you it was a treasure. They would then inform you of its market price, ranging from hundreds of thousands to millions, and promise to sell the collection if you authenticated it.
After paying a high price for authentication, you would be told that the item failed to sell, and then you would be charged a high management fee, leading to endless failed auctions.
Seventeen auction houses in Xi'an were involved in this scam, and six well-known auction houses became untrustworthy enterprises due to this scheme.
In the investigation of the "Treasures" scam, Lin Zhijun, the King of the Underground Palace, participated as an informant and played a crucial role in solving the case. However, the problem now is that although the scam was exposed and nearly two hundred suspects were apprehended, the mastermind behind the scheme has not been caught.
Regarding this mastermind, the "Treasures" task force only knew him by the three characters "X driver." Now, due to Lina's confession, Wang Zeyui has confirmed that "X driver" is a member of "Logic Paradox." Therefore, Wang Zeyui and the Shaanxi Provincial Public Security Department have coordinated to merge the "Treasures" task force into the "Black Gold" task force. They will work together to uproot "Logic Paradox" completely.
Today, Wang Zeyui called me into his office again. He looked at me with a smile, while I frowned, wondering if this uncle wanted to make empty promises again.
"Tang Nan, do you have any ideas about Lin Han's situation?"
I had indeed thought about this. I explained my general plan to Wang Zeyui: "I want to go to Xi'an with Lin Han as her boyfriend."
"Boyfriend?" Wang Zeyui said with a half-smile, looking at me with interest.
"I can't reveal Lin Zhijun's identity for now, and I want Lin Han to go home, so this is the only way. I just don't know if Uncle Lin Zhijun will agree."
"Parents cannot control their children's emotional matters."
Hearing Wang Zeyui's opinion, I frowned and replied, "Did you misunderstand? We are pretending to be boyfriend and girlfriend."
"No, whether your relationship is real or fake, we don't care. I support this idea. Young people can be a bit imaginative."
This old fox, I smiled helplessly, and suddenly remembered something: "There's one more thing I need your approval for, leader."
"What is it?"
"Please do not publicly announce the murder case involving Tie Zishan for now. He took that set of Qianlong thumb rings to Xi'an and will surely come into contact with 'Logic Paradox,' so..."
"I understand. I will apply to the leadership about this matter. He should know your identity, and if he's not caught, you'll be in great danger."
I smiled sincerely: "Who is in danger will be known. If they send me to Xi'an, I will definitely not let them off easily."
After saying this, Wang Zeyui looked at me seriously. I asked in confusion, "Team Leader Wang, what's wrong? Did I say something wrong?"
"Your words have a real 'jianghu' flavor. They remind me of a friend I knew when I was young."